Ben
Duffy/Sherdog.com illustration
At the beginning of this week, there didn’t seem to be much on the horizon to discuss in this space other than whether UFC Fight Night 138 features the worst on-paper main card in five years, or in 10. Seriously, when was the last time there was a sub-.500 fighter in an Ultimate Fighting Championship main or co-main event? Where’s Jay Pettry when I need the answers to these questions?
What a difference a few days make. Yesterday, police in Florida apprehended the man they claim is the mail bomber who has gripped the country’s headlines, and it turns out he’s a cage fighting aficionado. While in a better world they might not have to, Combat Night and American Top Team both did the wise thing and promptly announced that the suspected terrorist had no connection to them beyond slapping their stickers on his van. No story, nothing to see here. This sport attracts more than its share of horrible people, but it doesn’t create them. To paraphrase Dr. Freud, sometimes an a--hole is just an a--hole.
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While we’re still only days removed from the initial breaking of the story, some details have come to light. It isn’t a trade in the conventional sense; the two are simply being released from their contracts in order to sign with the other promotion. Both appear to be on board with the move, and neither Johnson nor Askren is the type to keep his mouth shut if he wasn’t happy about this. That revelation makes this whole story much happier, even if it did put the boot into the really awesome header graphic I was working on, featuring a pair of Octagon-shaped slave shackles.
On the face of it, two competing promotions coming to this kind of
agreement with the apparent consent of the fighters involved is
promising. If it heralds a future with similar mobility for
high-level fighters, even better. However, beyond the positive
precedent that might be set, some of the specifics of this
situation -- not all, but some -- are pretty awful.
First, the not-awful. Askren will be a fantastic addition to the UFC’s welterweight division, which was already ridiculously loaded. Leaving aside the fact that his longtime teammate Tyron Woodley sits atop the division -- apparently the parties involved see some way that will resolve itself before it becomes an issue -- there is no shortage of interesting matchups for the undefeated former Olympian who also happens to be an incendiary talker. No surprise that fellow wrestler and pot-stirrer Colby Covington wasted no time in giving Askren a scorching welcome to his new organization. Askren in the UFC makes sense. Whether you believe he’s the champ-in-waiting, a can crusher on the verge of being exposed or something in between, you get to find out now.
“Mighty Mouse” in One Championship, on the other hand, makes no sense. Hopefully it works for Johnson from a financial standpoint; if fellow ex-UFC champion Eddie Alvarez is really getting the eight-figure contract he claimed, maybe one of the five best fighters on the planet can get something close. Johnson will also be free once again to flex his underrated sponsorship game, and I for one am looking forward to the return of the XBox walkout T-shirt.
Beyond that, it gets murky fast. One’s flyweight division is not good. When I say “One’s flyweight division is not good,” I mean: I watch pretty much every One event, and I think Johnson might be able to beat any three of their flyweights in one night, one after the other, gauntlet-style. One’s flyweight champion, Geje Eustaquio, is 11-6 and has never fought anyone I would favor to beat Chris Cariaso, who is roundly considered Johnson’s least-deserving challenger. If you think Johnson was a big fish in a small pond in the UFC’s 125-pound division, he will be more like an orca in a kiddie pool in One. The best candidate for an inter-divisional superfight in One Championship, bantamweight titleholder Bibiano Fernandes, has been a teammate and training partner of Johnson’s for a decade. Far be it from me to try and tell the underappreciated “DJ” how to support his family, but as a fan, selfishly, it makes me sad to think he might spend the next several years of his competitive prime cashing checks for snapping anonymous necks.
Worse, the move to One will bring Johnson under the promotional oversight of Matt Hume, his longtime coach. Hume was named head official of One when it formed in 2011, a job he had previously performed for Pride Fighting Championships and Dream. The next year, that role was expanded and Hume was named vice president of operations, a position he holds to this day.
The conflict of interest here should be obvious, but in case it is not, let me point out that many of One’s events take place in unregulated or less-regulated areas where the promoter more or less serves as the commission. To have a fighter’s coach in the position of being able to change or reverse rulings is enormously problematic. AMC Pankration is not a giant conglomerate of a gym like American Top Team or Jackson-Wink MMA, either; it is a small, close-knit team and Johnson and Hume in particular have one of the most synergistic fighter-coach relationships in MMA history.
If you’re thinking, “Well, One would never ...,” I’m here to tell you it would. And it does. And it has: Twice this year alone, One Championship has reversed fight results after the fact, without having to go through any regulating body. In March, the organization reversed a submission win to a loss by disqualification, stating that the slam that forced Robin Catalan to tap out in pain had in fact been a suplex, which is illegal in One. Worse yet, in July One overturned a unanimous decision, citing Hume’s name and using language that said, in so many words, “We don’t care what the judges thought, we say the other guy won.” You may find it tedious when UFC President Dana White blasts officials at the post-fight press conference, but just imagine if he had the power to change fight results unilaterally.
Finally, Johnson’s departure is being seen by most as an indication that the UFC is about to eliminate the men’s flyweight division. While that makes me sad personally, I can’t condemn it too hard. I enjoy watching flyweights fight, but the people have spoken, and in 2018 the people are saying that they aren’t interested. Businesses succeed by selling the public what it wants, not by telling it what it wants, and that’s never truer than in an entertainment industry. If the UFC does shutter the 125-pound division, that means Johnson may end up seeing a few familiar faces in his new digs before long. Good thing Ray Borg helped him get all the suplexes out of his system already.
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